Subject to 20% VAT on Buyer?s Premium. For more information please view Terms and Conditions for Buyers.。Nicholas Rhodes described this as ?perhaps the most remarkable of all Ahom coins.? Although he mentions that there was rumoured to be another example in a collection in Kolkata, this is certainly the first and only one of its type to be offered at auction. He translates the characters ?zang bao? as ?Currency of Tibet? as ?Zang? is the Chinese character for the province of southern Tibet bordering Assam.

Also these two characters were used on the coins struck by the Chinese in Lhasa between 1792 and 1836. He suggests that as there was significant contact between Tibet and China in the mid 17íth century it is likely that the Assamese would have thought it appropriate for an Assamese-Tibetan trade coin. He concluded that this coin marked an attempt by Jayadhvaja Simha to expand and profit from trade with Tibet. However, the project was doomed to fail, as around 1652 Pratap Malla of Kathmandu signed a treaty with Tibet giving Nepal a monopoly over transit trade between India and Tibet.